What pianos will the cats of the future play for us? When evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins coined the word "meme" in 1976 — meaning "a piece of thought copied from person to person" — he probably didn't realize that, in time, the word would come to be synonymous with cat macros, various advice animals, and Rebecca Black.

Right round baby right round Among the faded LP sleeves crowding the Boylston-facing windows of Looney Tunes Records is a carefully hand-lettered sign written in black marker: "33 1/3 YEAR BIRTHDAY SALE. EVERY ITEM 33 1/3 % OFF LIST PRICE."

Reading class In recent months, Americans have become acutely aware of class divisions — thus it’s possible to choose books for your friends and family based on their income bracket. Below are picks for plutocrats and paupers alike.

Blue-collar poetry The novelists Richard Russo and Andre Dubus III might have first met each other at the Newburyport Book Festival in 2006, but they might not have — they hit it off so well that neither of them can quite remember. They've been friends ever since.

Kid lit, cultural literacy, and the rise of books that are fun to read In the late 1980s, when I was nine or 10, my mom bought me my own copy of A First Dictionary of Cultural Literacy: What Our Children Need To Know .